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Former President Donald Trump has called the United States a "failing nation" and claimed without evidence that election results in Nevada and Arizona are being affected by voter fraud.
Trump wrote a series of posts on his Truth Social platform overnight criticizing the election process in both states as Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake trailed behind Democrat Katie Hobbs with the race still to be determined.
As of Saturday morning, Hobbs had 50.7 percent of the vote to Lake's 49.3 percent with 83 percent of votes counted.
The former president also raised questions about the U.S. Senate races in Arizona and Nevada. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has won the Arizona race, defeating Republican Blake Masters, but the very close contest in Nevada has yet to be decided.
"The Democrats are finding all sorts of votes in Nevada and Arizona. What a disgrace that this can be allowed to happen!" Trump wrote.
"So in Maricopa County they're at it again," Trump wrote in another post. "Voting Machines in large numbers didn't work, but only in Republican districts. People were forced to wait for hours, then got exhausted or had other things to do and left the voting lines by the thousands."
"Even Kari Lake was taken to a Liberal Democrat district in order to vote. Others weren't so lucky. This is a scam and voter fraud, no different than stuffing the ballot boxes. They stole the Electron [sic] from Blake Masters. Do Election over again!" Trump said.
In a later post, the former president said: "RIGGED ELECTIONS, OPEN BORDERS = Third World Countries. The USA is a failing Nation!"
"Idiot, and possibly corrupt, officials have lost control of the tainted Election in Arizona. MACHINES BROKEN IN REPUBLICAN AREAS. A NEW ELECTION MUST BE CALLED FOR IMMEDIATELY!" he wrote.
Trump was referring in part to Maricopa County, Arizona, which is the state's most populous county. The vote counting process in the county has also been criticized by Masters, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Republican Party of Arizona.
Bill Gates, a Republican who is chairman of Maricopa County's Board of Supervisors, pushed back against those criticisms on Friday.
"The suggestion by the Republican National Committee that there is something untoward going on here in Maricopa County is absolutely false and again, is offensive to these good elections workers," Gates said.
Lake has also criticized the vote counting process in Maricopa County, telling Newsmax on Thursday: "They're slow-rolling the results, and they're trying to delay the inevitable."
"We will win this. I'm 100 percent sure of that," she said.
Gates rejected Lake's criticism, saying it was "offensive for Kari Lake to say these people behind me are slow-rolling this when they're working 14 to 18 hours [a day]."
Trump also said that "they're finding all sorts of Ballots in Clark County, Nevada. They are pulling out all stops to steal the Election from Adam Laxalt."
Laxalt is in an extremely tight race with Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. With 95 percent of votes counted, Laxalt has a narrow lead with 48.5 percent to Cortez Masto's 48.41 percent.
Newsweek has contacted former President Trump's office for comment.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more